Stranger Things season 4 had an original idea for a scene with Robin and Nancy, and it wasn’t great. The fourth season of the retro sci-fi series was greeted with huge critical acclaim, and was praised for managing to bring Stranger Things back to the top of its game.
Season 4 of the adventurous drama series, which can be found on the streaming service Netflix, developed the plot in unexpected ways, and gave almost all of its main cast a chance to shine. The episode ‘Dear Billy’ became particularly noteworthy for the scene where Max escapes from Vecna. But it was also a big episode for Robin and Nancy.
In the episode, Robin and Nancy disguise themselves as older university students in order to Victor Creel at Pennhurst Asylum and interview him, where they find that music was the key to surviving Vecna. In pretending to be older students, they model their clothes after academic students.
However, in a conversation with Insider, the makeup artists for the Netflix series spoke about how an original idea for Robin and Nancy’s disguise was changed. Amy L. Forsythe said that, at first, the duo were set to be dressed in much more mature, “hotter” clothing rather than academic-style attire.
She said: “Natalia [Dyer], Maya [Hawke], Devin [Morales], and I played around a lot [with the clothes for the scene]. We were trying to find what these girls would do when they’re trying to age up. So it was scripted that they were hotter, I guess. But then that version went away and it became more academic.”
Thankfully, it seems like the team making the decisions took the right one. If Robin and Nancy had been made to look “hotter”, audiences would undoubtedly have questioned whether or not it would have been in character for Robin and Nancy themselves.
It also could have looked exploitative, which would be to the detriment of a show which has largely managed to avoid such issues. Instead, the version we ended up with worked perfectly.
For what’s next in Hawkins, have a look at our guide to Stranger Things season 5. For more retro-vibes, check out our guide to the best ’80s movies.